Family Affair (38 page)

Donna laughed. "You are funny."

Chase had passed the test. "Now, that I've got you here, why don't you tell me what parts of the books you thought were funny."

"Oh, I'd love to. I was hoping you might ask me so I brought notes." She pulled out a set of typewritten notes including page numbers from the basket that usually held Toto. She gave them to Chase.

"Wow." Chase perused the notes.

"Some of the novels really require sequels. The characters are so compelling. I've made lists of all the character attributes so you wouldn't have to go back searching."

Chase quickly read through the research section. This woman was amazing. "You've done a lot of work here."

"Oh, I love it. Most people think I'm creepy."

"Are you creepy?"

Donna laughed. "No! I'm just thorough. I'm not a writer, but I love novels. I like to be part of the process. These notes are my way of doing that."

"You would be a great help to someone. It's difficult to keep everything straight and I read somewhere that some fans have kept track of things so that when a writer decides to do a sequel they have all the previous stuff."

Donna beamed. Chase was rather pleased with herself. She was being downright social.

Delia arrived with Chase's Dos Equis. "You're not pestering her." She eyed Donna.

"No," Chase and Donna said simultaneously.

Delia's surprise exploded on her face. "Really?"

"Donna would be a great asset for us. Look at this." Chase handed her Donna's notes. "She could write jacket copy and she keeps great notes."

"I do research too. I'm very good at accessing just about anything."

Delia looked skeptical. "We couldn't afford it." She sipped her beer.

Chase raised an eyebrow. She took a swig off her beer and waited.

"Gratis. I'd do it gratis," Donna said.

"Acknowledgments, free copies—you don't know what it could lead to. It would look great on your resume," Chase said.

"I'll do it," Donna fairly screeched.

Delia studied Donna's notes. "She is good. I'm sold."

"So what do you do...normally?" Chase asked, suddenly wondering how she had so much available time at her disposal.

"I'm a communication major at the U of NM, work part-time at the college radio station and I volunteer at the Literacy Project," she said brightly.

"Oh, my," Chase said, glancing at Delia who appeared in equal awe.

"I don't sleep a lot. Three hours a night, two if I'm busy working on a project. It gives me between two and three extra months in a year. I really want to be a literary agent," Donna said. She picked up Delia's empty beer bottle from where she had carelessly put in on the nearest table and deposited it in the thirty-gallon trash can standing right next to them.

"Aha! The true motive comes out," Delia said.

"I need to understand the job from the bottom up," Donna said.

"I'll sign," Chase said.

"Me, too," Delia said.

"Thanks," Donna said. She smiled big and looked at both of them with what can only be described as utter and total glee. "I better let you go. I don't want to be accused of monopolizing." She left them.

"Your group is out back," Delia told Chase.

Graciela was standing next to Gitana on the red brick patio. The backyard was just as overgrown as the front. The fence was barely visible for the yellow and orange trumpet vines. Everywhere there were pots of marigolds, zinnias and pink petunias. Chase wondered who had the stability in the house to remember to water the plants.

Graciela was dressed as a cave woman complete with a plastic wooden club. Delia kissed her on the cheek and handed her a Dos Equis, even remembering the lime stuffed in the neck of the bottle.

"That's a fitting outfit," Chase said, eyeing the fake fur dress held together at the shoulder with a white plastic bone.

"It is if you're planning on dragging a certain someone back to your cave." Graciela tucked her arm around Delia's waist which was neady accented with a pink belt that held up the slighdy ruffled tutu skirt. She looked like a ballerina who'd gone on a binge and not fared well as her slighdy askew tiara indicated.

Gitana gave Chase her best it-looks-like-someone-might-be-settling-down look.

Chase smiled and sat down next to her at the round rusted metal table that had once been white as slivers of the original paint attested. She scanned it to make sure there weren't any exposed edges. She tried to recollect whether Gitana had had a tetanus shot in the last ten years. She saw that Nora and Eliza were talking to two women, their backs turned to Chase, one dressed in a Victorian suit and the other in a smart business outfit with a short blond wig.

She watched Graciela and Delia as they fondled each other in a manner that for them was discreet. It was good her friends were settling down. For the longest time, she and Gitana were the only steady couple. Their friends were always dating or living together temporarily, planning ceremonies for life partnerships that didn't work out. Chase had stopped getting roped into being the best person at these ceremonies because she would rent a tux only to discover that the union had disintegrated shortly after the reception. She liked the food though. The way she figured it Gitana had a ring and they called it good. She liked to think there was a redemptive quality to long-term relationships and she wished her friends and relations would stick it out long enough to discover it.

"I'll be right back," Graciela said, untangling herself from Delia's embrace.

She went up to the two women Nora and Eliza were talking to. She pointed in Chase's direction and then returned to the table. "They'll be over in a minute," she said to Chase.

"Is that my mother?" Chase said, staring hard at the woman in the Victorian suit.

"Payback for this summer." Graciela gloated.

They came over.

"Oh, this is so much fun," Peggy said.

Stella glanced at Chase. "Graciela invited us," she said as if Chase needed an explanation.

"You look good with a mustache," Chase said. Her mother's hair was slicked back and dyed black. Temporary dye, Chase hoped. She didn't want her mother going from Victorian to Goth. She wore a black coat, gray trousers and a gray and black pin-striped vest with a gold chain. She'd gone to a lot of trouble, Chase noted.

Mother and daughter seemed shy with one another. It was weird, Chase thought. She could tell everyone was waiting for her reaction, including Stella. "Who are you, exacdy?"

Instead of being insulted, Stella was thrilled as if being in costume meant being in disguise. "Why, I'm Hercules Poirot."

"Agatha Christie. You do look just like him," Delia said.

"Let me get a snap," Gitana said, pulling a small digital camera from her bag.

"Who are you?" Chase asked Peggy as she linked arms with Stella and posed for Gitana. Her mother actually looked like she was having fun.

"I'm DCI Jane Tennison," Peggy told her as she smiled for the camera.

"I love that show," Delia said, bringing Gitana a paper plate of cashews, radishes, carrots, celery and Bing cherries.

"Lovely, thank you," Gitana said, taking the plate.

"Yeah, Prime Suspect, DCI Tennison is..."

Delia stopped.

Chase just knew Delia was going to say something horribly sexual.

Instead, she finished, "Smart and strong and looks fabulous in a business suit."

Chase smiled and nodded at her in relief. "I've never heard of the show."

"It's on PBS," Stella said.

Her mother watched PBS? Chase didn't know anything about this. How many other things did she not know about her mother? Did she need to sit her mother down and get her to reveal all her secrets? It was completely and totally fucking bizarre. She imagined herself as an interrogator probing the recesses of her mother's mind. She'd take notes and still she would never really know her mother. It was all back to the lexicon of memory—the splashes of scenes, the remembering of one thing—and why that one incident instead of another had made the imprint. It didn't make sense. She felt herself rather peeved. How could she not have known that her mother was also a woman called Stella—a person in her own right—like Dr. Robicheck was a therapist, a divorced woman and now dating a man she loved. It was mind-blowing. She'd have to peruse her mother's media interests and interrogate Stella's lexicon of memory, gathering as much information as she could.

Eliza and Nora came back with plates laden with snacks. "For the group," Nora said, seemingly defensive about the heaping plate.

"And don't worry about Hantavirus. The kitchen was thoroughly disinfected," Graciela said.

"It's too late now," Gitana said as she finished the plate of snacks that Delia had brought her.

Chase was instantly mortified. She'd been so engrossed with her mother that she'd not screened Gitana's food consumption.

"Dude, you need to relax," Graciela said, putting her hand on Chase's shoulder.

"Hey, they're playing our song," Delia said, grabbing Graciela's hand.

Chase listened. It was some bump-and-grind techno thing that she didn't recognize.

Stella looked over at Peggy. "Want to give it a try?"

"I'd love too. I haven't danced or had this much fun since I don't know when," Peggy said.

They hightailed it into the house.

Nora and Eliza plopped down in two half-rotted green lawn chairs and smiled happily at each other.

Chase looked over at Gitana. "Fucking weird is all I have to say." Chase took a handful of jalapeno stuffed green olives from Nora's community plate.

"And there's been no mention of butt darts," Gitana said.

"What are butt darts?" Eliza said.

"I don't think you want to know," Nora said, taking her hand.

Chapter Twenty-Six

When Chase stepped into Dr. Robicheck's office and didn't scream, "What the hell!" she chalked this up to her new more flexible approach to life. The Halloween party had done much to dispel a lot of her preconceptions. It was like she'd been given another set of eyes and the world looked truly different.